The fun part of koi keeping

It seems we do a lot of work on our weekends taking care of the koi and building the new pond. It is work but there’s a lot of fun with it as well. This weekend was plant weekend and it was nice to see all the koi excited about the plants. We picked out some water lilies, the usual hyacinth and more water lettuce, something called barred horse tail and an aggressive yellow-green grass that grows in the water. Koi are known for eating/destroying most pond plants. On the first day, they just seemed excited to have new things to hide under. The plants certainly encouraged them to stay at the surface more.

Of course, that could be a bad thing. Tony went in to look for our friend, Moriarty. Sidebar – Tony likes getting in the water with the koi. They all seem to like him as well and will come up and swim around him. So Tony checked a number of hiding places and we are 99% sure that the koi is missing. Most likely a bird like a heron or eagle. I will be stringing some fishing line across the pond to discourage them. The two koi that stayed on our front porch for a long time in fish hospital are doing well back in the pond. Cha Cha’s fins are still stubby but I have hopes they will grow back. Lucy’s sore has healed and she seems to swim with the crowd more often.

At the end of the day, our koi and ponds give us a lot of enjoyment. We had out in a new window in the side of the house next to our pond a few months ago. Last night, Tony was feeling lazy about feeding so we fed the koi through our window. I think the koi liked it better as well because this bunch tend to be wary of people standing on the edge of the pond. Still working on training them to feed out of our hands.

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About me…

I grew up in Southern California and graduated from the United States Military Academy (West Point) in 1982. I was commissioned a military intelligence officer and served with XVIII ABN Corps (Fort Bragg, NC), 82d ABN Div (Fort Bragg, NC) and 42d FA Bde (Germany). I hold a master's degree in early childhood special education and an administrative endorsement in educational supervision.

I moved to Minnesota in 2010 and married a man who happens to enjoy digging holes and constructing waterfalls. I envision that every spring and summer will be spent puttering around a koi pond. Aside from koi, I enjoy starting random hobbies (trapeze lessons, pottery, sumi-e), gardening, reading a good book, drinking tea and a thousand other things that won't fit into this text box.

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